Pitch Perfect: Boys of Summer, Book 1

by Sierra Dean

  “Not when?” Emmy had stopped stretching him but was still holding his elbow. Her hand was warm.

  “Not when there are other people who—”

  Jasper came in clutching two plastic bags from CVS and two Starbucks cups stacked on top of each other. “You would not believe the pains I took to find civilization.” He dumped the bags on a nearby table and thrust a coffee in Emmy’s direction. “Hey, man.” Jasper nodded at Tucker, completely oblivious that he’d walked in on anything. “Don’t know how you can drink the toxic sludge this one makes.”

  “I don’t know,” Tucker said as Emmy released his elbow. “I’m pretty fond of her way.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Emmy leaned against the dugout fence with Alex Ross beside her and Tucker one spot down. The April air was cold in Missouri, and she had a Felons beanie pulled down over her ears but nothing to keep the chill off her cheeks.

  Miles Cartwright was in his third inning, and he was making things interesting. The young pitcher—in only his first start in the majors—was keeping the score at nothing, but giving them all a heart attack by walking at least one batter each inning.

  Alex was in a forced off day and watching the backup catcher take wild pitches off the newest member of the Felons bullpen. He kept cursing under his breath and gnawing on his hoodie sleeve to keep the words from showing up on national television.

  Next to him Tucker was dead silent, having not moved a muscle since Miles first stepped to the mound. Emmy was having trouble deciding which part of the performance was bothering him most. It might have been the erratic way Miles was handling himself, but Emmy suspected it had more to do with how goddamn good the kid was when he got his shit together.

  A 103-mph fastball was…well, it wasn’t just unusual, it was a lethal weapon for a team struggling to regain their former glory. A pitch that fast couldn’t be hit. It took an eighth of a second to get from the pitcher to the catcher, and there was no way for a batter’s brain to react quickly enough to swing on time. It didn’t matter how many millions he was paid.

  Emmy watched batter after batter succumb to the nasty fastball Miles was throwing, and all the while she could practically read Tucker’s mind.

  The fastball used to be his pitch.

  She’d seen him throw a ball that fast after nine innings once. A complete game shutout and he was still pitching over 100 mph. That kind of stamina was unreal.

  She wondered if he had that kind of stamina in other situations.

  What was it he’d been about to say in the therapy room before Jasper had walked in? Something about other men? There was something going on between them she couldn’t ignore—no matter how hard she tried—but was he after more than just sex?

  Alex grumbled something next to her, derailing her thoughts.

  “What?” Emmy didn’t actually need to know what he was complaining about, but talking to him seemed better than thinking too hard about what Tucker’s expectations of her were.

  Whatever they were, it was time for her to start reconsidering her relationship with Simon, because it wasn’t fair to either of them if she was spending day in and day out thinking more about Tucker Lloyd than about the man who was supposedly her boyfriend.

  “He’s leading with his leg too soon,” Alex responded, pointing at Miles with a pinky finger. “It sets him off balance, and he’s fucking up half his goddamn pitches.”

  At first she wanted to ask what the hell Alex knew about pitching since he’d never done it, but she decided to give him the benefit of the doubt and watched Miles’s setup more closely. He drew up his knee and lunged out, but Alex was right. His step went ahead too far before his arm was in motion, giving him a slight wobble on his delivery.

  Emmy straightened up, trying not to draw attention to herself, and pulled away from the fence. She found Mike Anson—the pitching coach—and tapped him on the shoulder.

  “’Sup, Em?” he asked, his tone gruff but not unfriendly.

  “It’s Miles. His delivery is…off.”

  “You’re telling me.” Mike spit a wad of tobacco onto the dugout floor next to Emmy’s feet.

  “No, I mean it’s off in a real way.” She pointed to the field where Miles was building up for his pitch, and she and Mike watched him throw the same way he had previously. It was good for a strike, but the wobble was still there.

  “Well, son of a bitch,” Mike said, rubbing his short white hair. “How’d I miss that?”

  “He’s going to hurt himself if he keeps it up.”

  “He’s hurting us if he keeps it up,” the coach replied. “It’s a goddamn miracle he’s gotten anything into the catcher’s glove throwing that way.”

  Mike signaled to the catcher, who called a time-out with the umpire, then he waved to Emmy.

  “Me?”

  “Come on, girlie, I ain’t got all day here.” He walked slowly onto the field, and Emmy had little other choice but to follow him.

  She didn’t miss Tucker staring at her as she bounded up the dugout stairs and onto the field. The Kansas City fans hooted and booed over the pause in game play, and she tried to ignore the din as she met Mike at the pitcher’s mound. The backup catcher, Jeff Craig, was standing next to Miles, waiting for them to arrive.

  “Hey, coach,” Miles said sheepishly.

  Sometimes Emmy forgot how young these guys were. Miles was a high school prospect who had been groomed in the minors. He was only twenty-one. Pitching in a big park, for a team with the prestigious history the Felons had? It was a lot of pressure for anyone, let alone a kid who was barely out of his blackhead phase. He gave her a nod. “Hiya, Emmy. Er, Mrs. Kasper?” He didn’t quite know how to handle her. Most of the guys had made the adjustment to having a woman around, but Miles was still uneasy, that much was obvious.

  “Ms.,” she corrected. “And you can call me Emmy, Miles. Honestly.”

  He bobbed his head and fidgeted on the mound.

  “Everything okay?” he asked.

  “Well, son, that depends on what your definition of a strike zone is, now doesn’t it?” Mike asked. His gravelly voice made the words sound harsh, but he coughed out a laugh at the end, bringing some much-needed kindness to the situation. “You’re doing good, but we need you to make a change.”

  “Now?”

  It wasn’t standard procedure for a pitching coach to ask his pitcher to make a form change in the middle of an at-bat. Typically they would wait until after the game when there was more time to let the pitcher make adjustments naturally. Emmy was surprised they were out here and Mike was willing to rattle Miles’s cage with a major form shift.

  Mike casually explained what they’d noticed and turned to Emmy from time to time to get her agreement and have her explain what risks Miles was posing to himself. It felt good to be needed, and to have her opinion respected by an old-timer like Mike.

  “You think you got it, kid?” Mike asked.

  “Yessir.”

  “You gonna go ahead and strike this guy out?”

  “Yessir,” Miles said, like Mike was a drill sergeant. This time though there was more pep in his voice, edging on excitement. Miles wanted to prove he could apply the lesson they’d delivered to him. Emmy was hopeful for him. If he could get a handle on his delivery, he had a hell of a future ahead of him.

  Mike gave the young pitcher a friendly pat on the behind, and Emmy opted to squeeze his shoulder.

  “You’ve got this,” she assured him.

  “Thanks.”

  Emmy jogged back after Mike, and when she reached the dugout, her space next to Alex had been filled, leaving only a standing position beside Tucker.

  She leaned against the railing, hoping to see Miles improve his stance, but was distracted by the sensation of Tucker’s gaze rapt on her. She adjusted her focus so she was looking at him from the corner of her eye rather than at the field.

  “What?”

  “You’re something else,” he said.

  She turned her face fully
so she was staring right at him. For the first time since the game had begun there was something like a smile on Tucker’s lips.

  “Is that a good thing?”

  “Yeah,” he replied. “Oh yeah.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  San Francisco at Chicago, Record 7-6

  Tucker loved how a stadium felt when it was empty.

  During a game he had to shut out the noise of the fans and focus on Alex, concentrate on delivering the perfect strike each time he threw. He had to be on his game every instant, even in the dugout.

  But in the hours before the game, there was a kind of peace he couldn’t find anywhere else. The seats were vacant and the service staff hadn’t arrived yet to start cooking hot dogs and tapping beer kegs.

  He’d arrived ahead of Emmy and her crew, and none of the other players were in the ballpark yet, giving him time alone with his thoughts. And with his arm.

  In the visitor’s bullpen he had a sack of balls next to him and a pitcher’s target lined up at the end of the grassy patch. Normally he’d warm up with a bullpen catcher, but there was no one else there, and he was grateful for that. If he was going to make a fool of himself, he didn’t need to have anyone witness it.

  The small black cloth rectangle with two yellow-outlined cutout boxes mocked him from sixty feet, six inches away. The exact distance between home plate and the pitcher’s mound, and the exact distance by which a pitcher could measure success or failure.

  Sixty feet, six inches was all that stood between him and the end of his career if he couldn’t figure out how to get his fastball back.

  Tucker picked up a ball and rubbed his calloused fingers over the stitches, following the red path around the circumference. His fingers hooked naturally, nails digging in behind the stitches in a perfect knuckleball hold.

  But his time as a knuckleball pitcher was winding down.

  He straightened his two bent fingers so they were in line with the red seams and tucked the ball into his glove, sucking in a breath through his nostrils.

  “You can do this,” he whispered. “You know how to do this.”

  It was too bad his brain didn’t quite believe the words his mouth was saying. Was a two-seam fastball the same as riding a bicycle? Could he simply fall back into the habit when it had been years since he’d thrown one properly?

  Letting out another breath through clenched teeth, Tucker set himself up, eyed the target and dove forward, releasing the ball. He didn’t need to look to know it was bad. He’d felt the failure of the pitch the moment it left his hands. He’d tried to push it forward like he would a knuckleball, but pushing the ball didn’t help with a fastball.

  The ball glanced off the target and rolled pitifully to the end of the bullpen green.

  Tucker sighed, rotated his shoulders and neck, then picked up another ball.

  He would get this if it killed him.

  Emmy felt like a stranger in what had once been her home.

  U.S. Cellular Field had been her day-in-day-out life for four years, and she knew every locker room and corridor like the back of her hand. She could have navigated the hallways blindfolded, but it wasn’t her house anymore.

  She stood outside the home team locker room, no longer entitled or allowed to enter. Her old office was there. The supply closet and the equipment she’d once used almost daily.

  Now she got the crappy second-rate visiting team offices and the equipment that might make Jasper cry more than he had in Kansas. Their visit to Detroit had been like taking a break in heaven. All the equipment the Tigers used in the visitor clubhouse was as nice as that used in the regular home suite. Jasper had to be restrained from sending them flowers.

  They’d been spoiled.

  The door to the clubhouse opened, startling Emmy enough for her to let out a little yip.

  “Hey, rock star.” Riley Hanson, the Sox star first baseman was wearing nothing but a towel, showing off a very well-muscled chest. “How’s life in the Bay treating you, Em?”

  Emmy was accustomed to ignoring men in towels. Nudity went hand in hand with working around athletes. Riley wasn’t shy, and there was no sense in her getting flustered. She’d seen him way more naked during her four years with the team than he was right then.

  “Hey, Riley. It’s good. Good. Really good.”

  “Sure, yeah. But is it good?” He winked at her, big blue eyes flashing.

  Emmy smiled. “How you been?”

  “Good.” He laughed, and she couldn’t help but follow suit. It was nice to know some things didn’t change, even though she was now banned from the inner circle of the Sox. She’d made her choice, and it was for the best. She had to remind herself of that.

  “How’s the new me?”

  “Jason?” Riley shrugged. “He’s not as good as you were. And some days I think Mitch might strangle him for missing the obvious stuff. But that’s life. You know how Mitchy is about change.” He rested a hand on the towel, absently tightening it around his waist. “Anyway, speaking of the old man, he needs me to have my knee looked at.”

  “Still taking nasty slides?”

  “You know me.”

  Emmy smiled and considered giving him a hug, but given his state of undress it might be unwise. “Good to see you, Riley.”

  “Hey,” he said, halfway down the hall. “Nice piece in the Sun-Times today.” He gave her a thumbs-up and almost lost his towel in the process.

  What piece in the Sun-Times?

  Emmy waited until Riley was gone before turning and ducking back into the visitor’s clubhouse. Amongst the copies of Sports Illustrated and Baseball Digest was that morning’s copy of the Chicago Sun-Times. She discarded the world news and local interest, dumped arts and entertainment on the floor and went right to sports like her father every Sunday.

  Her own face was looking back at her, the smiling first-day photo she’d had taken for her Felons press release. There was a second inset photo of her, a candid snapshot from her days as the Sox assistant A.T., laughing at something one of the players was saying.

  She was too dumbfounded by seeing her picture in the paper to absorb the headline at first. Breaking the Big League Glass Ceiling.

  Simon Howell’s byline was beneath it, and a lump formed in her throat.

  Her vision blurred, and she couldn’t properly focus on the entire content of the article, but the best she could tell was Simon was singing her praises as a new feminist icon in the sports industry. The first female head athletic trainer of any major league sports team, he pointed out, and an icon for young women everywhere.

  It should have been sweet. It should have been flattering. She should have felt something other than a blinding white rage that overcame her.

  He wrote an entire article about her without telling her.

  The whole goddamn thing was about her, and there were no quotes from her. There were, however, an awful lot from Cassandra Dano at ESPN. She’d met Cassandra a handful of times at different sports dinners, but they weren’t exactly pals. The leggy reporter sounded like a big fan, telling Simon about how Emmy was changing the world one elbow sling at a time.

  The fuck?

  There were quotes from players on the Sox she’d worked with. Quotes from coaches and managers. And there it was, near the bottom, a quote from goddamn Tucker Lloyd.

  We like her, the quote said. I like her. Do I think she’s different because she’s a woman? No. Do I think she’s good for the team? Yes. She’s good for us.

  Good for us.

  I like her.

  More importantly, though…what the hell was Tucker doing talking to Simon about her?

  She lowered the paper and looked around the room, hoping something there might offer her a little insight. All she saw was Tucker’s duffel bag and a pair of street shoes tucked into his locker.

  Emmy clutched the paper to her chest and marched out of the clubhouse, up through the dugout and into the open air. It wasn’t until she hit the field that she realized it was still
cool outside and she was only wearing her uniform polo. When she crossed her arms, the paper crinkled under her armpit, and she jogged across the field towards the visitor’s bullpen.

  The steady whap sound grew louder as she approached, first silence, then the smacking sound of a hard-thrown ball hitting something that wasn’t a glove. The ball-in-glove sound had its own specific, lovely cadence. This was something different.

  She got to the gate leading into the bullpen and stopped.

  Tucker was standing on the makeshift mound with his back to her, staring down a pitching target at the end of the green like it was his worst enemy. He set up, huffed a breath, then released his pitch.

  It knocked the corner of the target, nowhere near the strike zone.

  Tucker growled and announced, “Fuck you too, you goddamn piece of shit.”

  “You know, it didn’t actually move,” she pointed out, the newspaper rustling in the wind.

  He jumped and turned towards her, a nervous expression on his face. “How long have you been standing there?”

  “Long enough to see you walk the invisible batter.”

  His shoulders slumped, and his frown deepened. Emmy had the distinct feeling she’d hit him where it hurt without trying to.

  “I was teasing,” she said.

  “Yeah, except you’re right. If I keep pitching like this, they’re going to banish me to the farm team.” He tossed the ball up and caught it in the same hand. His long fingers made it look positively miniscule. Emmy sucked back a sigh and reminded herself she was there because she was angry, not because she wanted to think wanton things about Tucker’s long fingers.

  “I have to ask you something.”

  “If it’s to teach you how to pitch, you’d have better luck asking the groundskeeper.”

  “Ha-ha.” Emmy rolled her eyes and didn’t pretend to smile. She held the newspaper up and pressed it against the chain-link fence. The pages didn’t rest flat, their edges ruffling in the late-morning wind.

  “What’s that?” He dropped the ball into a nearby bag and approached the fence, squinting in the sunlight to see what she was showing him. “An article about you?”